Day One: In which I put my money where my mouth is (once I *have* money)

I don't know if Mercury's in retrograde or I spat in the Cheerios of the travel faeries or what, but every step of this trip so far has been plagued with problems: delayed flights, car rental difficulties, wrong turns, and so on. The only saving grace is that so far, none of them have reached the level of "detained for two hours by Israeli airport security." <knocks on wood> But the unanticipated closure of Blackfriars station, coupled with my ill-considered decision to come in late on a Sunday night, left me stranded only partway to my hostel, with a rather expensive cab ride my only option for getting the rest of the way there.

Oh, and as of writing these notes, I have no money. Figuring out what's wrong with my ATM card has been added to today's schedule.

( But I soldier on. )

Fortunately for my feet, that's pretty much it for the day. Not that it was a lazy day or anything, mind you. This trip, however, is much less firmly scheduled than the previous ones (mostly because people keep not answering my e-mails). So a lot of what I do over the next few days will be more catch-as-catch-can. That's okay, I think, even though I'm frustrated by my difficulties contacting places. I'll adapt.

If I find myself with time to fill, I could always go learn the streets north of the Tower.